Infested with pup.optional

[Frank1]

My OS is Windows 8. For my security I have the free Malwarebytes installed and Windows Defender. Last week I ran a scan with Malwarebytes and it found 11 pieces of malware. All of them were pup.optional. This morning I did another scan and it found 811 of them.:shock: This is not a typo. It found eight hundred and eleven! How could this have happened? I do not get on any obscene web sites or any that may be questionable. Also what are the pup.optional? I would appreciate some thoughts on this. Thanks, Fran

 

[DavidE]

MBAM recently made a change to a more aggressive PUP policy.
Malwarebytes Adopts Aggressive PUP Policy - Malwarebytes News - Malwarebytes Forum

In the past, Malwarebytes Anti-Malware has detected only PUPs, or Potentially Unwanted Programs, that were mostly harmful and deceiving. Our users expected more and so we’ve revised our policy to include PUPs in our database that most of our users find annoying or misleading. Within the next few days, detection for many new variants will be added.​

Malwarebytes feels most of our users have no knowledge that these PUPs were installed and would like them removed. Several thousand forum posts and support tickets confirm our standpoint. Ranging from difficult to uninstall applications to software that makes you opt-out, we’ve had enough of it all!

Source: Malwarebytes Adopts Aggressive PUP Policy | Malwarebytes Unpacked

This won't answer why you have them or where they came from, but it might explain why you are seeing them now.

 

[Jacee]

What browser are you using?

 

[Frank1]

What browser are you using?

I'm using IE 10.

 

[Jacee]

Can you copy and paste the last log by Malwarebyte's, please?